Dictionary:

incubation

  (ĭn'kyə-bā'shən, ĭng'-)

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1. 1. The act of incubating.
   2. The state of being incubated.
2. Medicine. The development of an infection from the time the pathogen enters the body until signs or symptoms first appear.
3. Medicine. The maintenance of an infant, especially a premature infant, in an environment of controlled temperature, humidity, and oxygen concentration in order to provide optimal conditions for growth and development.

A trial process in which a fund company operates a number of funds privately with its own capital or employee capital, and only opens the top performing funds to the public. The higher performing funds that survive the incubation period are used by the fund company to generate business. The funds with unattractive performance, which would be more difficult to market, are liquidated.

Investopedia Says:
While there is nothing illegal about this practice, some consider it to be unethical because it can overstate the investing performance of the fund company, creating what is known as incubation bias.

For example, suppose that a fund company starts three funds that earn returns of -5%, 2%, and 20% respectively over a one-year period. If the fund company only opens the 20% fund to the public and does not disclose the other performances, a bias is created because the average performance of the three funds is actually 5.7%.

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This popular investment vehicle has seen its share of ups and downs, successes and scandals. Read all about it here. A Brief History Of The Mutual Fund
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The maintenance of an ideal environment with regard to temperature, light, air, and humidity in order to foster development of an organism or culture.

1. the provision of proper conditions for growth and development, as for bacterial or tissue cultures.
2. development of a disease by multiplication of an infectious agent within the host.
3. the development of the embryo in the eggs of oviparous animals. See also avian incubation periods.
4. the maintenance of an artificial environment for a neonate, especially a premature one.

• artificial i. — use of a machine which warms, turns, humidifies bird eggs to incubate and eventually hatch them.
• i. behavior — see avian broodiness; almost non-existent in egg-laying birds; persists in meat strains and turkeys.
• i. period — the interval between effective exposure to a pathogenic infectious agent, leading to the invasion of the body and the establishment of the infection, and the appearance of the first clinical signs of the disease in question. Incubation periods vary from a few days to several years, depending on the causative organism and type of disease. See also extrinsic incubation period.

The Wikimedia Incubator is a wiki comprised of test articles for Wikipedia.

The word incubation (from the Latin incubare, "to lie upon") can mean the following:

Physical incubation:

• The term Avian incubation is applied to sitting on or brooding bird's eggs in order to hatch them.
• In chemistry or biochemistry, incubation refers to maintaining a system under specific conditions in order to promote a particular reaction.
• An incubation period in medicine means the time between being exposed to infection and showing first symptoms.
• Incubator (microbiology), refers to maintaining a bacterial culture at a particular temperature for a set length of time, in order to measure bacterial growth.
• An incubator for warming newborn infants. See Neonatal intensive care unit.

As a metaphor:

• In economics and management, incubation refers to the support provided by business incubators in the development phase of startups when entrepreneurs work on the launch of their companies.

Other:

• Incubation (psychology), the process of thinking about a problem subconsciously while being involved in other activities
• Incubation (ritual): the religious practice of sleeping in a sacred area with the intention of experiencing a divinely-inspired dream or cure.
• Incubation (computer game) is a computer game.
• Incubation (song) is a song by Joy Division, released on the B-side of the Komakino flexi-single in 1980, and on the Substance album in 1988.
• Incubator (band) is a German heavy metal band.
• The episode Incubator of the sci-fi series Farscape.

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